This watchdog blog, by journalist Norman Oder, offers analysis, commentary, and reportage about the $4.9 billion project to build the Barclays Center arena and 16 high-rise buildings at a crucial site in Brooklyn. Dubbed Atlantic Yards by developer Forest City Ratner in 2003, it was rebranded Pacific Park in 2014 after the Chinese government-owned Greenland Group bought a 70% stake in 15 towers. New York State still calls it Atlantic Yards. Contact: AtlanticYardsReport[at]hotmail.com

The fundamental dilemma of the Landmarks Preservation Commission is the conflict between preservation and new development in a city where real estate ownership trumps all else in access to power and influence… But when a site does get put on the commission calendar to be considered… the public hearing process is quite admirable.. The measure of the commission is not just what gets designated a landmark or a landmark district. The key is what the commission avoids doing.

Indeed, the commission, which is controlled by the mayor, avoided considering the Ward Bakery in its map of the new Prospect Heights Historic District.

Change Is Gonna Come: The Fluid Life of New York City. In a city like New York, change is constant. Yet with that change comes numerous and oftentimes competing interests. Sharon Zukin (Naked City), Roberta Brandes Gratz (The Battle for Gotham), Jonathan Soffer (Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City) and Martin Lemelman (Two Cents Plain) consider the perpetual ebb and flow of the Big Apple and how it affects us all.